The Robber Bride

By Margaret Atwood

From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments—one of Margaret Atwood’s most unforgettable characters lurks at the center of this intricate novel like a spider in a web. The glamorous, irresistible, unscrupulous Zenia is nothing less than a fairy-tale villain in the memories of her former friends.

Roz, Charis, and Tony—university classmates decades ago—were reunited at Zenia’s funeral and have met monthly for lunch ever since, obsessively retracing the destructive swath she once cut through their lives. A brilliantly inventive fabulist, Zenia had a talent for exploiting her friends’ weaknesses, wielding intimacy as a weapon and cheating them of money, time, sympathy, and men.

But one day, five years after her funeral, they are shocked to catch sight of Zenia: even her death appears to have been yet another fiction. As the three women plot to confront their larger-than-life nemesis, Atwood proves herself a gleefully acute observer of the treacherous shoals of friendship, trust, desire, and power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307797971

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of over fifty books, including fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning television series, her works include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; The MaddAddam Trilogy; The Heart Goes Last; Hag-Seed; The Testaments, which won the Booker Prize and was long-listed for the Giller Prize; and the poetry collection Dearly. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in Great Britain for her services to literature. She lives in Toronto.

Reviews for The Robber Bride

[valerieandbooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure what to add to the many excellent reviews here of The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, but this was my favorite of hers that I've read so far. Not only is this a character study of the women involved, but the plot kept moving along. This story will stay with me for a long time -- how the manipulative Zenia wreaks havoc in the lives and relationships of three other women (they knew each other initially in college). Zenia opens up their psychological wounds -- some readers may have triggers -- and adds more to the pain. What a villain!

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood is going to be a book that I long remember. I ran the gamut of emotions while reading it. At times I was frustrated and angry, other times I was laughing, some parts of the book touched me deeply while others cause me to rant and rave. The story is how three women are exploited and damaged by a fourth. She uses them, steals their men, takes their money, then gets bored and moves on. Occasionally she also uses blackmail to get what she wants.I actually didn’t relate to any of the women, they mostly angered me with how they tended to put their men on a pedestal and the men totally peeved me with their wishy-washy ways and how they allowed their women to clean up their messes. Unfortunately these women were no match for this master predator as all three of them came from damaged backgrounds. She was an expert at digging out her victims weak spots and manipulating it to her advantage. And yet, the author gave a sense of playfulness to the story with her wit and insight into male/female relationships.The Robber Bride has a dark fairy tale quality, with this truly evil she-creature picking apart each woman’s life, but in actuality, the men were such spineless philanderers and shameless liars that these women would be better off without them. Perhaps Atwood, with tongue-in-cheek, was showing that this villainous woman was doing them a favour.

[bravenewbks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Don't want to write too much here in advance of our book club discussion next week, but I'm pretty impressed by what Margaret Atwood did with the story. Also, she is a genius with words. Because of that, I think she can get away with doing things in fiction that would, in the hands of another author, ring hideously false or contrived. This is a bizarre story in many ways, almost verging on magical realism, but I think she makes it work.

Also, I got chills from this passage:

“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”

I am a woman with a man inside watching a woman. /shiver

[tripleblessings_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favourite Atwoods, always good to re-read. I love the setting on the Toronto island, and biting sarcasm, anger and revenge, some great chuckles along the way.

[kalyka_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In 1993 Toronto, three unlikely friends - Tony, an eccentric history professor specializing in battles, Roz, a highly successful business executive, and Charis, a quirky salesperson working at an esoteric shop, have nothing in common, except Zenia. While having their monthly lunch at the Toxique, they all spot her. But why is she alive and looking better than ever when all three women went to her funeral?The novel then details the stories of the three protagonists and of how Zenia has infiltrated and affected their lives; Tony's in the sixties when they were in college, Charis's in the seventies, and finally Roz's in the eighties. All three, in their own words, describe their respective childhoods and how they have come to meet Zenia, who has never given any of the three women the same life story. They also come to realize - a bit too late - that Zenia is much more cunning and manipulative than she lets on, and how she uses her opponents' weakness as a weapon. And she uses that weapon effectively and without mercy, seducing all three women's chosen partners turn by turn.All the main characters, surprisingly, can be related to, in a different way. Tony is a very imaginative woman, and able to recreate battles with only a map and peppercorns and dried lentils, which can be representative of a child. Charis, while being middle-aged, is stuck in self-discovery, like an eternal teenager. Roz, on the other hand, has entered adulthood with gusto, and represents the modern superwoman; the one who works outside the home while taking care of house, home and the children. Finally, Zenia is a force of nature none can control. Beautiful, intelligent and cunning, she leaves destruction and chaos in her wake. And what is nature, if not chaotic?This novel isn't just about three women who have come together in the wake of another's devious betrayal, it's a reflection on the nature of friendship and trust between women. Feminism is also a recurring theme in this novel, as is the war of he sexes and how one uses the power struggle between men and women to her own advantage.Just as Zenia has seduced the men in Tony, Charis and Roz's lives, Margaret Atwood has seduced me with her magnificent prose.4.5/5

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If there's going to be knife-play, Roz will have to rely on herself alone. She doesn't need Tony's analysis of knives through the ages or Charis's desire not to discuss sharp items of cutlery because they are so negative. She just needs to know where the jugular is, so she can go for it.I found this book more enjoyable than the other Atwoods I've read. Normally I find them kind of distancing and I'm more likely to notice the author's wonderful sentences than to empathise with the characters, but this time I really felt for Tony, Charis and Roz in their struggles with the evil Zenia.

[heidilove_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

kind of fun

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Maybe that's what West found so irresistible about Zenia, Tony used to think: that she was raw, that she was raw sex, whereas Tony herself was only the cooked variety. Parboiled to get the dangerous wildness out, the strong fresh-blood flavors. Zenia was gin at midnight, Tony was eggs for breakfast, and in eggcups at that. It's not the category Tony would have preferred.Tony, Charis and Roz have all fallen prey to Zenia, or rather their husbands and boyfriends have been stolen away along with other things they held dear, like trust and security and chickens. Zenia, a talented grifter, knows how to get each woman to trust her, until she's taken what she wants and disappears. First is the diminutive, studious Tony, an orphan studying the history of war and living in a residence hall where she does not mix comfortably with the boisterous girls enjoying college life. Then she meets West, a music student with whom she forms a close friendship only to discover that he's living with the glamourous Zenia. Charis has learned how to disappear into herself, a necessary skill to surviving her childhood, first with a mother with a mental illness and then with relatives who are willing to do their duty by her. She finds security for herself though, by creating a home in a drafty little house on an island a short ferry ride from Toronto. With the addition of Billy, an American avoiding the Vietnam War and a flock of chickens, she forges a small family for herself and willingly sets out to shelter and heal Zenia, who tells her she's dying of cancer. And then there's Roz, big-boned and loud, who has a family she loves and a burgeoning business empire, for whom Zenia poses as a talented war correspondent looking to start a career in a gentler place.Often in a book with a shifting point of view, I find myself preferring certain characters and wishing they had more time and others less, or I find it hard to fully involve myself in the story, because the emotional emphasis keeps shifting. Margaret Atwood's so good at what she does, however, that I found myself equally invested in each of these three very different women. While Zenia, a woman willing to betray other women to get what she wants, is the center of the book, the real story is about the friendship between Tony, Roz and Charis, who would not have become close had they not all been deceived by Zenia. Each is vulnerable because they are open to friendship and it is ultimately that openness that saves and heals them.

[wortklauberlein · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Margaret Atwood is always a pleasure to read and invariably illuminates the complex relationships between women, pinpointing that razor line that marks the distance between best friend and backstabber."The Robber Bride" details key events in the lives of three damaged young women who meet in college and are tied throughout adulthood by their betrayals by the beautiful, worldly Zenia. With each woman's unwitting help, Zenia steals away the lover/husband of first one and then the next and the next, discarding the men along the way. As an example of a manipulative pathological liar, Zenia has few rivals in literature. But while her over-the-top personality and actions are believable, the gullibility of our trio of heroines doesn't ring true.While intrigued by each character, I didn't especially want to spend a lot of time in their company and at the end of this lengthy work, my sympathies lie primarily with the poor chickens.

[lisa.johnson.james · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was an intricately woven book, about 3 women who otherwise wouldn't have even been friends, but ended up becoming the closest of friends through common circumstance. The common circumstance being a woman by the name of Zenia, who blazed through their lives, stealing what was nearest & dearest to them, their husbands/lovers, then leaving them helping each other pick up the pieces. Zenia is a liar, telling Tony, Roz, & Charis(formerly Karen), each different stories of her childhood, and her circumstances. They think they are safe when news comes in of Zenia's death in Beirut, on assignment for the magazine she works for, & her cremains are sent back, & are buried. 5 years later, the 3 are stunned to run into her again in the same city, & like a spider, Zenia begins to weave her web of deceit again. What follows makes the book next to impossible to put down.

[auntieclio · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This? This is a "thumping good read," and what a deliciously, ironic ending. Brava, Ms. Atwood, Brava.Zenia preys on people, for fun and, mostly, for profit. She is an evil scheming sociopath with no scruples, morals or ethics.Tony, Charis, and Roz knew each other slightly from college, but become fast friends when they bump into each other at Zenia's funeral.The Robber Bride is the story of these three women from childhood. It's the story of how Zenia wreaked havoc on their lives, and how they carried on.And it's deeper than that. It's a look at how decisions made by others shape our lives without our knowledge, and how some people are just no good.Be warned: there are possible triggers in one particular chapter.

[nymphadoria · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

wonderful book

[vivl_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found this fascinating and extremely moving, but was not compelled to re-read it immediately, as I was with The Blind Assassin. That's a rather high standard to hold it up to, however, and I certainly believe this book is worth more than 4 stars. Margaret Atwood's intense understanding and affection for her characters, even, in the end, the nastiest of them, is inspiring. I wish I could feel such tolerance for the foibles of others!

[flydodofly · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The three main characters are connected by a wicked Zenia, a mysterious woman, adulteress and a liar, and - the best friend to each of them at some point. Zenia sounds almost like Xenia, which translates as hospitality, and guest-friendship, simplified it can even mean - friendship. The three women are so very much different in character that it seems unthinkable they would ever matter to each other. However, united against Zenia, they develop an unlikely kind of friendship and lean on each other for help and comfort in Zenia-stricken times. In her wake, Zenia, in her turn, leaves the women desolate, having to rethink their futures, but she also offers them a mirror, which helps them focus, and find what is important to them and who they are. So in the end, when she is finally gone, they feel strangely connected to her, thankful and accepting.

[caitdub · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I can't remember what class I read this for. Loved the book, though. I need to read more Atwood.

[mrsjwilloughby_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love Atwood. Especially enjoyed 'The Blind Assassin' and 'Alias Grace'. 'The Robber Bride' doesn't disappoint either. I defy any female not to identify with at least one, if not all of the characters in this book. Love, lust, jealousy, betrayal, heartbreak; it's all here. A fascinating tale spun out deliciously right through to the end.

[katharinedb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Again - Atwood. Again- a great novel. Explores the insanity of the politics of friendship between women ..

[amerynth · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Margaret Atwood is one of those writers that really knows how to cut to the core of human nature and display its weaknesses and strengths in powerful characters. That said, I found "The Robber Bride," which tells the story of three women who are manipulated by Xenia, a beautiful pathological liar, to be one of her weaker novels. The characters, while well-drawn and filled with backstory but are also patently unlikeable and annoying. It made it hard for me to be particularly enthusiastic about picking up the book to read on. I also found the ending to be sort of abrupt and tacked on as well. I've loved her other novels (Cat's Eye and of course The Handmaid's Tale in particular) but this one just fell sort of flat for me.

[jlparent · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love Margaret Atwood - this covers how three women were brought together by the betrayal of another woman who seems to exist JUST to cause strife and turmoil. It's not my favorite of hers, but it's a solid read and captured me immediately - like every Atwood, that is!

[autumnesf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Book about 3 women that have been victimized by one other woman. All have had their men taken by the 4th. Very easy read and kept your attention trying to figure out what the angle was.

[strandbooks_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I haven't read a Margaret Atwood book I didn't like. This was the weakest one so far though. The story revolves around 3 women whose lives were ruined by a college friend, Zenia. Each woman is very different and larger than life, but so well written I found them believable. I had an issue with Zenia and the lack of characterization there. She was more of an evil force than a person. Atwood probably created this feeling on purpose, but it annoyed me. I wanted to understand why she was manipulative and conniving. The book never answers that.

[flying_monkeys_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rating: 3 of 5I never really connected with any of the women in The Robber Bride, which made this one a difficult read. The characterization was spot on; I just didn't like anyone. There's a (sometimes subtle) difference between a weak, flawed character and a victim. And I don't have a strong stomach for victim-y women.My favorite part of the book was how Atwood switched POVs easily with zero confusion for the reader. Her characters were so distinct, such real people, they made the different POVs and flashbacks just flow right along with the present day narratives. Brilliant!

[thatotter-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is definitely not my favorite Atwood--the characters all seemed like stereotypes to me, and for the most part not very likeable ones. The men seemed to have zero free will or self control.

[eljabo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There are writers and there are WRITERS. Margaret Atwood falls in the latter category. I've loved every single one of her books. I'm not sure why I haven't read more of them. I should pick her books over the trashy, teeny-bopper vampire books I've been reading. I found myself only reading this book when it could have my undivided attention. I didn't want to miss a single syllable. Yes, it took me longer than normal to read, but I enjoyed being able to truly savor the words. And, Margaret Atwood is definitely a master of words. Vivid characters, engaging writing, strong storytelling -- it was a terrific book to read. I loved the way the story flowed together -- three different points in view, numerous points in time and one common thread tying everything together. It was fascinating to see how encounters with one not-so-nice person could spark life-long friendships with three women who didn't have much else in common. Some folks have written that Zenia was way too bad. She WAS pretty bad, but occasionally I caught glimpses of some buried humanity. It made the story more believable.

[dablackwood · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

couldn't get through it - too dense - I just never cared about the characters

[ldvoorberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first Margaret Atwood book I ever read. I loved it! (The book is much better than the movie, too.)

[simonea_533972 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Robber Bride tells the story of three women, who have in common that their men were 'stolen' by Xenia. Xenia is believed to be dead, but shows up in these women's lives again. As a reader, we get to see flashbacks tot their past experience with Xenia for each of the women. Then, we see the present through each of their views. It's definitely a clever, well written book, which I enjoyed reading. I have to say, though, that all the women were a bit too much, leaning towards caricatures of themselves. However, I still found the Robber Bride a fascinating book, which I would recommend to Atwood fans.

[laura400 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful book by a masterful author. It was the rare long book that I didn't want to end. In fact, as Atwood herself says in an almost meta aside, the end seems almost arbitrary. The three main characters are so fully realized that we can believe they continue on after the last period on the last page.

[csweder · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Atwood is probably my favorite author, and while I feel this novel was good (I mean, it was Atwood), the story line didn't grasp me as much as some of her others that I absolutely love. Still present is the great and distinct style that is Atwood.

This is not to say that the plot is bad, it isn't. It's just not as "OH MY GOD THIS IS LIFE ALTERING" that some of her other books have meant to me.

This novel follows three women, who are very different, and who probably would not be friends, were it not for their mutual tormentor: Zenia. No one really knows Zenia, or the truth about Zenia, because she lies, and lie very well. She also enjoys stealing boyfriends/husbands.

This is the story of these three women, Tony, Charis and Roz, and their experiences with Zenia. They all breathe a deep sigh of relief when she turns up dead....until about six years later she reappears, apparently faking her own death. Now the three are faced with what is, by all means, their worst enemy--and they don't know what it is she wants now. Tony's husband (again?), Roz's son? One thing they all want: answers about Zenia.

[rachaelster · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Margaret Atwood is such a skilled writer it's hard for her to put a foot wrong. I enjoyed this book, but prefer 'Cats Eye' for its emotional immediacy. Still, I recommend this.